JB_Whiting

Hope she enjoys all five minutes of her screen time.

@Tatarimokke DO NOT play this game solo. It is a miserable experience. I tried it for a couple hours and wanted to cry. I can barely recommend this game at all but if you really want to give it a go, please do it in multiplayer. Even basic mobs are literal sponges.

Well this is certainly one of the more generous critiques. This game is being savaged almost across the board; and I think rightly so. Cheaper price point or not, this is a real botch-job of a game. Having it on GP was the perfect opportunity to confirm my worst fears.

It was certainly magical... up until the point it past the Mega Drive games, then I was completely lost.

@Would_you_kindly Yes and no. You're still up against the strength of you own broadband connection, plus the actual servers' refresh rate. I've had a quick go and you can notice the difference - albeit slightly - it's definitely snappier and more responsive, virtually no judder. But I wouldn't say it'll turn the tides or anything.

PC players have far better advantages though, they can go up to native 4K (and maybe even further) plus they can max out their FOV which basically means they can see you in their peripherals when you still can't see them on console.

Ohh man, the blood, sweat and tears shed from this back on the GC; not to mention the couch multiplayer. I really hope local 4-player remains, and maybe even six axis control too?!!

@kingbreww Totally agree. The Platinum is basically gonna be labelled "common" as so many will get it with ease. A shame cause previous R&C games at least had you finish it on hard and then a challenge mode run-through. The average time to plat for this is literally 10 hours!

@Oz_Momotaro They have literally yet to make a bad game, so I'm basing my hype on previous experiences; call it blind faith if you will, but my body is ready.

I do share peoples' views on the jank. But we all know that doesn't matter in these games. Artistry trumps technical prowess in my mind and these guys are the lords (pun intended) of art.

FROM have yet to put a foot wrong and I don't see them doing it again come January.

@thehappyaerithch He's clearly not a Souls fan! To call this generic is particularly insulting. We don't even need trailers for FROM games to know it'll be incredible.

It didn't blow me away, but that's par for the course with pre-release trailers for Miyazaki's games. They're never graphical showcases on the surface, but once you tuck into it yourself, and allow it to swallow you into its world, you soon realise you're playing another instant classic.

Also I think I've been a bit spoilt with DS remake's visuals that going back to FROM's Dark Souls engine feels like a graphical step back. I'm okay with it though; this is clearly far more ambitious in scale and scope (and maybe slightly hamstrung by last-gen consoles), therefore less room for finer polish. This will undoubtedly run at 60fps on PS5 though so no complaints from me

@thedevilsjester I'm sorry but no amount of bells and whistles can top a buttery smooth 60fps, and like with most of these titles, the extra graphical flourishes are minimal at best (some extra reflections here, more refined shadows there).

The irony is that you say you can barely notice the difference, but for me and many other pairs of eyes, the frame rate difference is night and day and drastically improves the actual gameplay of the game; while these graphical extras you get from fidelity are barely noticeable unless you go into photo mode.

Plus with R&C you get the best of both worlds with Performance RT mode (at 1440p, which is enough)

@get2sammyb What's the pixel count on Performance RT?

@CynicalGamer As far as I'm aware the game can be 100% completed in one play through, including all trophies (none are missable). I've read this can take around 15 or so hours in total.

@themightyant Yeah, I think the expectations are more to do with it being a PS5 exclusive than a new R&C. And people are piling on these unrealistic expectations because of it. Like I said I enjoy the R&C series but the light and breezy nature, and its unwillingness to really try something outside the box, sort of limits it to this "great" section of critique. Again, by. no means a bad thing, I just think everyone needs to stop expecting the next exclusive to be a masterpiece.

The 8 score isn't super surprising, I mean, the series as a whole isn't exactly a 10 out of 10, and the 2016 reboot was somewhat underwhelming. But then again I'm not a big fan so!

@Shepherd_Tallon Difficulty doesn't matter for the Plats in the LE versions. Making them a cake-walk.

Further proof that Ubisoft just don't know what to do with Sam. If they can't make it fit their typical mould of open-world busy work and cram it with MTX then why bother I guess.

@Wiggo I ordered mine from The Game Collection - it's £62.95 on there (I had about a fiver of loyalty points too). I do laugh at these pre-load options when most of our physical copies will arrive on Thursday!

Yikes! I admit I was drawn in by the flashy videos early on (despite not being a Warhammer person), but this is.... well, I'll just say thanks for the heads up. Saved myself 30 quid!

Also really disappointed to hear about performance; clearly poorly optimised. I guess this one is best left to PC gamers. I'd hate to think how it runs on PS4.

@RawnDawn From the leaked footage they appear to be going for a near future setting, which is understandable as I think they're positing this as a soft reboot ala Modern Warfare 2019. Either way it's going to be really something.

@PapaGlitch It might be because of the studio behind it: a small, plucky band of developers gave it an underdog feel; I guess everyone wanted it to do well.

From what I've read the team were afforded a rare luxury of a long dev time with little to no crunch, allowing them to take their time and create something special without publisher interference or pressure.

The problem is that they chose to use this extra time to stuff it to the gills with unnecessary features to, I guess, stand up to its AAA contemporaries, and in doing so diluted the focus and ironically, made it just like many generic AAA open-world games, only far rougher.

This review and a few others have persuaded me to pass on it. A shame as it has the makings of something interesting; I'm just totally done with generic open-world game design at this point.

Also as for the PS5 debacle: 1080p may be fine for some, but on my OLED the image is far too soft.

About halfway through 2 and I've forgotten how astounding this trilogy is; I feel bad for getting the first game "out of the way" as it were (finished it in around 13 hours), but for me 2 is where the real meat is and I'm just soaking it all back in. One of the best games of the year and one of the best remasters ever.

I had to mute it after 5 seconds, but it sure does look pretty.

@Voltan Nice one! I have 3 more survey trophies to get - can I ask, how do the glyphs and logs spawn? Is it one of each per run, for example, if I find a glyph in a biome, should I exit and start again or keep going? They're really frustrating!!

I honestly don't get the argument for digital over physical; if one is happy to pay absolutely insane prices then that's up to them I guess. I'm happy to get up off my butt to change a disc now and then if it means I pay £15 - £20 less for it.

Case in point: I purchased RE: Village (physical) for £45 (it is £55 on the PS store) and once I nabbed the Plat I stuck it on Amazon marketplace for £43, it was snapped up immediately and I netted £36 for it after fees. So the whole experience cost me 9 quid.

I know you guys don't use decimal point scores but I'd stick it at a healthy 7.5 (I've just recently nabbed the platinum for playtime reference). It fails to craxk my top five RE titles afraid to say; I found it to be a frustratingly inconsistent, but fun ride all round.

@Unlucky13 I doubt there are any discernible differences at all, at least not visually. You just get a locked 60fps at full 4K on PS5.

I've put a few hours into so far (always order physical people; you get it early and its cheaper I mean COME ON) and I don't remember it being this slow to start, but I'm looking forward to getting properlly stuck in.

A note on the trophies: there are basically 4 trophy lists; one for each game (with platinums) and a separate one that just gives you a few bonus trophies (silver and bronze) for doing things across the three games. The good news is that you don't have to do it on insanity to get these plats.

And to think, the original was a risky endeavour that the higher ups at Capcom nearly pulled the plug on, only for Mikami to push back and insist they saw development through to the end. Not only did it go on to save the company from near bankruptcy, but it is now their flagship IP!

I really enjoyed Village, though its lack of focus for me soured the experience somewhat; I much preferred the cohesiveness of 7; Village was all over the shop.

Yikes, I'll pass. I value time as well as money; just because something is free doesn't mean I will ever get those wasted hours back!

Can someone who's played through the game and defended it, explain to me why game critics are so out of touch with this game? I've seen a few gameplay videos myself and it looks outdated, clunky as hell, and... well it just doesn't look fun to play; and I'm a Terminator fan! Please give me a reason to give it a go.

@Residentsteven I'm actually glad there's a fanbase out there for it, however small, because it just shows that RE has something for everyone. I mean my criticisms run through many instalments, not just 6; for example 7's second half is a real let down after the amazing Baker residence. I've heard that Village has a kitchen sink approach again; a bit of something for everyone, even if it there's little logical cohesion. I'll always follow the series though - through the good times and the bad

@Residentsteven Just had the displeasure of playing through 6 again with a friend (who's new to the series), and I think I hate it even more. There are too many horrible moments to pick from: QTE's; the repeated "finding 3 keys" sections; the nonsensical storyline (even by RE standards); getting knocked down when you take a few bullets; the laughably bad UI; the redundant skill upgrades; Ada Wong's entire campaign; the Simmons boss which just. Never. *****. Ends; the snowmobiles; the Call of Duty/Michael Bay style applied to every level; the recycling of dull, ugly environments; reducing the climax of an end-game boss to "mash the trigger to pull the switch"; the driving sections; the unbearable melodrama, which made me actually hate Chris; the fact Capcom can't decide what fans want, so they go for the kitchen sink approach. I could go on but yeah, the nadir of the series for sure.

I do like Mercenaries though!

Wow. Terrible pricing aside, this is a welcome surprise! My first ARPG experience and still my fave. Especially how let down I was with the new Dark Alliance, this will be a definite purchase...

... after a heavy discount.

@GeneJacket You've hit the nail on the head there. The biggest failing is in its structure. There is literally NO THIRD ACT. When Shang Tsung and his cronies get past Raiden's shield, I figured this was the end of act two, where our heroes take a collective beating and perhaps have to escape, dust themselves off and come up with a plan to fight back later. But nope. That was it; that was the climax. The good guys just win, without any resistance.

As a fan since the arcade days it completely missed the mark on what makes MK so great; hell I'd say the '95 original did it better. At least that was FUN and had oodles of camp attitude.

I've played it for an hour so far (another day-early physical arrival!) and it's quite an experience, though I must state....

Prepare to die.

Those who are less familiar with rouge-lites and are perhaps lulled in by the game's marketing as a narrative-driven adventure are in for an arse kicking. It's ducking hard. Like, frustratingly so (but never not satisfying). It's not even an "easy to pick up, hard to master" kind of experience, but those willing to put the effort and time in will be rewarded I think. This is certainly a steep mountain I can't wait to climb more of!

EDIT: and just to chime in here about the price and people defending it saying "see look, look you get 50+ hours of content here how can you not justify the £70!" to that I say, it's not 50+ hours of varied content so much as it is 50+ hours spent doing things over, and over, and over again until you've perfected movement and combat to a point where you can do it blindfolded. For a lot of casual players that is a big ask, and still not 50hrs well spent.

Operation Racoon City, Umbrella Corps, REsistance... and now this. Capcom really don't learn.

Is over a million views really that unusual? The PlayStation channel has over 13mil subs. Also R&C is pretty well known, no? I dunno I'm not much of a YT expert!

@Voltan Bear in mind that 8-year-old machine gave us DMCV and FFXV - the former at 60fps and the latter with an unlocked frame rate. This sort of looks on par with those (although it's only 30fps) so entirely possible!

About 15 hours in and as much as I tried to stay on the saner side of things, my Elelectro-Chemistry and Inland Empire personalities just kept pushing their way into the forefront of my thoughts; now I'm a self-absorbed, relapsed substance abuser who has frequent two-way interactions with inanimate objects.

Agree on the bug fixes; their swiftness is welcome. Though I would put long loading times between rooms in the negative box - they're still a pain - and really should be instantaneous on PS5.

A special shoutout to British Sea Power for the score - exquisite.

OK was fully expecting this to be a hardcore Plat, but not seeing any difficulty related trophies here which is a shame; kinda want this Plat to be a badge of honour ie. earned through sweat and tears and not just time-wasting collectathons with little to no skill.

Glad I held off picking up WRC9 - I've read the haptics are great but it still looks a little last-gen to me. Fingers crossed this will be a full-fat PS5 experience (though I somehow doubt it).

The patch has helped with interactions (I no longer have to press X twice on everything) but there are still frame rate hitches and the loading on PS5 is still annoying (3 or 5 seconds to get into each room/area).

Echoing everyone's sentiments when I say... why? I mean yeah incorperating the visual fidelity and gameplay updates that came with Part II would be welcome, but if they're doing a full-on remake wouldn't they re-record voice work? That's risky... remember Twin Snakes?!

I was left underwhelmed by Days Gone's story and its mechanics (though the world and animation were beautiful), so I'm not fussed about continuing it. I'm all for them kick-starting a new IP however; they're talented folks.

As much as I welcome these fixes (god help me those crashes are finally being sorted) I'm a little bummed that they're nerfing the classes (I'm a Trickster and now all my badass skills have had their cool-downs increased)

@2cents But this game doesn't live by that; it's not a GAAS; it is a complete game, with a beginning, middle and end; a satisfying campaign chock full of stuff to do (that took me around 30hrs to finish) that alone is enough for me to call it a good game. The endgame stuff is just bonus content to me.

OK I've just finished the campaign (Trickster, currently World Tier 13) and am smashing through the end-game expeditions. I gotta say, this game is f***g brilliant - not in an innovative, or revolutionary way - but it just cuts out all the *****. Said BS that I find plagues the likes of Avengers, Anthem, and even Destiny to a degree. The kind of stuff where you're just wondering the levels, faffing around finding arbitrary stuff to do.

Outriders certainly is compared to these games but I think these comparisons are only skin-deep. Diablo is clearly the template here; with its linear, action-filled structure that, like I said, cuts out BS like grind and fluff in favour of just pure ADDICTIVE action. It's great fun and I urge people who like/love looter shooters to check it out immediately, connectivity issues aside.

I'm also really happy for People Can Fly that it is trouncing Avengers in its concurrent players. Square Enix take note please.

Look at the updated textures, 60fps, and the 4K resolution!.... on a 720p, 30fps video.